The 2009 December Gamma-ray Flare of 3C 454.3: The Multifrequency Campaign

The 2009 December Gamma-ray Flare of 3C 454.3: The Multifrequency Campaign

During the month of 2009 December, the blazar 3C 454.3 became the brightest gamma-ray source in the sky,reaching a peak flux F ~ 2000 × 10-8 photons cm-2 s-1 for E > 100 MeV. Starting in 2009 Novemberintensive multifrequency campaigns monitored the 3C 454 gamma-ray outburst. Here, we report o...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Pacciani, L., Vittorini, V., Tavani, M., Fiocchi, M., Vercellone, S., D’Ammando, F., Sakamoto, T., Pian, E., Raiteri, C., Villata, M., Sasada, M., Itoh, R., Yamanaka, M., Uemura, M., Striani, E., Fugazza, D., Tiengo, A., Krimm, H., Stroh, M., Falcone, A., Curran, Peter, Sadun, A., Lahteenmaki, A., Tornikoski, M., Aller, H., Aller, M., Lin, C., Larionov, V., Leto, P., Takalo, L., Berdyugin, A., Gurwell, M., Bulgarelli, A., Chen, A., Donnarumma, I., Giuliani, A., Longo, F., Pucella, G., Argan, A., Barbiellini, G., Caraveo, P., Cattaneo, P., Costa, E., De Paris, G., Del Monte, E., Di Cocco, G., Evangelista, Y., Ferrari, A., Feroci, M., Fiorini, M., Fuschino, F., Galli, M., Gianotti, F., Labanti, C., Lapshov, I., Lazzarotto, F., Lipari, P., Marisaldi, M., Mereghetti, S., Morelli, E., Moretti, E., Morselli, A., Pellizzoni, A., Perotti, F., Piano, G., Picozza, P., Pilia, M., Prest, M., Rapisarda, M., Rappoldi, A., Rubini, A., Sabatini, S., Soffitta, P., Trifoglio, M., Trois, A., Vallazza, E., Zanello, D., Colafrancesco, S., Pittori, C., Verrecchia, F., Santolamazza, P., Lucarelli, F., Giommi, P., Salotti, L.
Format: Journal Article
Published: Institute of Physics Publishing Ltd. 2010
Subjects:
quasars: general
radiation mechanisms: - non-thermal
galaxies: active
galaxies: individual (3C 454.3)
Online Access:http://iopscience.iop.org/2041-8205/716/2/L170/pdf/apjl_716_2_170.pdf
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/24759
Description
Summary:During the month of 2009 December, the blazar 3C 454.3 became the brightest gamma-ray source in the sky,reaching a peak flux F ~ 2000 × 10-8 photons cm-2 s-1 for E > 100 MeV. Starting in 2009 Novemberintensive multifrequency campaigns monitored the 3C 454 gamma-ray outburst. Here, we report on the results ofa two-month campaign involving AGILE, INTEGRAL, Swift/XRT, Swift/BAT, and Rossi XTE for the high-energyobservations and Swift/UVOT, KANATA, Goddard Robotic Telescope, and REM for the near-IR/optical/UVdata. GASP/WEBT provided radio and additional optical data. We detected a long-term active emission phaselasting ~1 month at all wavelengths: in the gamma-ray band, peak emission was reached on 2009 December2–3. Remarkably, this gamma-ray super-flare was not accompanied by correspondingly intense emission in theoptical/UV band that reached a level substantially lower than the previous observations in 2007–2008. The lackof strong simultaneous optical brightening during the super-flare and the determination of the broadband spectralevolution severely constrain the theoretical modeling. We find that the pre- and post-flare broadband behavior canbe explained by a one-zone model involving synchrotron self-Compton plus external Compton emission from an accretion disk and a broad-line region. However, the spectra of the 2009 December 2–3 super-flare and of thesecondary peak emission on 2009 December 9 cannot be satisfactorily modeled by a simple one-zone model. Anadditional particle component is most likely active during these states.

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